New "Uncontacted" Tribe Found in Amazon

anyone ever seen 'the Gods Must be Crazy'? a movie about bushmen in southern africa (i think). amusing, entertaining...and raises a lot of issues about 'what we think is normal in our world' vs. 'what is normal for some other people who do not live anything like the industrialized world does, and don't much care to'.

i don't agree with forcing a lifestyle on anyone. if they thought they were completely bereft of our wonderful lifestyle and its advantages, wouldn't they be walking as fast as they could for rio de janeiro? maybe they think the earth is still flat? that's great...we don't need another crocodile dundee movie with them in it. i like it when one society minds its own business and leaves another one alone.

 

I know the culture and history pretty well. I'm part native and I’ve studied ancient Mesoamerican history, culture and literature for 5 years now. It's a hobby..I sincerely think you have many misconceptions on just what we are capable of with are best intentions. The Spanish 500 years ago and human beings today are totally different in almost every way possible. We are one race, one species and one peoples and i find it utterly wrong to seclude any man from the plethora of knowledge, culture and all things else human that we as a civilization know of. I could go on and on.. but your opinions seem grounded and i understand i guess.

 

Indeed they are grounded as are yours it would seem. That's neither good nor bad in and of itself. I too have sort of a hobby of studying people. I see little difference in the greed and ethnocentricity of people today compared to the Spanish 500 years ago. Indeed there are many more enlightened individuals but governments and the people who exploit the world we live in are the same throughout history. I've had opportunities to go into very remote areas where I could well have encountered uncontacted people. While I would love the experience for my part I feel it would be morally wrong to do so.

I would never presume to destroy another culture simply because I thought I had "so much to offer". In the back of my mind there is the echoing of an old cliche something about the road to hell and good intentions...aahhh well slips my mind now.

I do enjoy this type of discussion and I respect your thoughts while not agreeing with them. It would be fun to have such a conversation in person.

 

I am kind of curious now, didn't us just flying over with them looking at us pretty much just pop their proverbial human contact bubble. We unintentionally just fucked their culture by having a metallic winged beast rumbling through their usually quiet sky. LEAVE THEM THE FUCK ALONE! They are enjoying all the knowledge of human consciousness by just being. They learn similar and what I would say are better moral standards and greater appreciation for LIFE, instead of our shitty desires.

 

I think we should avoid making direct contact.. because we might give them diseases and whatnot... but we should at least fuck with them a little.

like, drop a bunch of confetti on their village, or put on a nice fireworks show for them. Or blast some music at 3am. (come on.. it would be inhumane to not expose them to Led Zeppelin. They've never heard anything but lame-ass tribal drums)

or if we were feeling really sadistic..

 

that's what i was gonna say broski.....

who knows of what bad ass drugs they have....i want them

 

There place on the evolutionary scale is homo sapiens, in the same gene group as Asians and other native americans. It is remarkable that they build a house out of natural fibers and tools made from bone. That is creativity most modern people never use.

 

yeah they eat those funkyy mushrooms:2thumbsup:

 

I too am really really hoping they get left the hell alone!

 

Leaving them alone is a policy that should be applied to everyone

But just to interject a note of skepticism ... these claims of "uncontacted tribes" have surfaced before and been found to be incorrect. I'm not saying the Brazilian authorities are lying, but if they're "uncontacted" now, how do you know what they know and what they don't???? How do you know they haven't already been contacted????

And you do know that there is a fairly new movement in anthropology these days to the effect that the civilizations in the Americas are considerably older and more sophisticated than previously thought. The reason that the New World seemed so empty and pristine to post-Columbus explorers, so goes this new theory, is that the populations had been wiped out by European diseases brought by the early Spaniards.

I think the real story, as with much of anthropology, is yet to be told, but in the meantime, I'm somewhat skeptical of these "uncontacted" claims.

 

Hey Granny, Along the lines you are talking about I've read that it now appears there were vast cities and connections between them in the Amazon Basin. Satalites have revealed patterns too difficult to spot on the ground. Because the jungle reclaims man-made objects so well there are no traces of buildings and infrastructure. Thats pretty amazing stuff.

I've also read that the native population declined from over 90 million people at the time of the Spanish arrival to around 10 million within the first 100 years. Disease took many but the Spanish with the blessing of the Catholic Church enslaved and murdered the First people as if they were livestock. TOoread some of that history is sickening.

As far as uncontacted, I think that's a relative thing. I believe there are people who have not met or interacted with outsiders. They may have heard that we exist, they may have traded with other tribes and gotten metal and plastic trade goods but for the most part they are uncontacted. I've talked to some guides who have had interactions with people who live so remote that they haven't been bothered AND don't want to be bothered. There is at least one tribal group in Peru that has maintained its isolation but sent word through other tribes that they wanted western doctors to come in and treat their people. Polio is still a killer/crippler in many remote areas. Diseases and viruses travel on their own and seem to find their way into places that seem uncontacted. The group I work with is flown in to these remote villages with doctors and volunteers who come in and provide vaccines and offer treatment. It's a pretty touchy situation and the military has to come along to protect the volunteers. It's pretty tightly controlled bu without that contact the people would die out.

Always when talking to folks like this they tell of people they know deeper in the jungle who have not been contacted. There are a few pockets of head hunters shrinkers still around too. Pretty wild stuff to think about.

People that are interested can check the website Amazon Promise to learn more. I've worked with this group for years and love what they do.

 

Indeed it is. Of course, it wasn't totally one-way, though. There is evidence that syphilis, for instance, originated in the Western Hemisphere and was taken back to Europe by the Conquistadors. If true, I guess you could say that was the first "Montezuma's Revenge."

Good points. It's always a tough call as to which "benefits" of modern civilization should be passed on to them. Medical care would seem obvious. Who would want to be the one to tell a parent that "no, we can't save your child because that would be interfering with nature" or some such?

And it's just as obvious that a steel ax, for instance, is vastly superior to a stone one. Why should these people be denied the benefits of things the human species has painfully learned over the centuries?

On the other hand, they certainly don't need our crime and pollution and other assorted miseries.

I have the sense that we have no right to be playing God to them, but either way, that's exactly what we would be doing.

 

WHen I adopted my oldest son from Peru he had never; ridden in a car, flew in a plane, ridden an elavator or ecalator, been to a movie, used a microwave showered in hot water or seen a bathtub. He had never been cold and ran out half naked and danced in his first snow. He had never been a minority and came to a country full of white people. At one time I kept a list of his "firsts". It was a joy to share those things with him.

He asked me to adopt him while I was living down there. I really had to consider the shock of changes he would experience but he convinced me that he was ready...and he was. I don't think it would be the same for everyone because when I adopted his youngest brother he was not as receptive to things here. He has grown into it quite well but still feels the jungle and its alure. Curious business playing God indeed.

 

Tribe meets white man for the first time
[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7a7IaS3ml4g&feature=player_embedded

 

I saw a special the other day about these people. THe man who photographed them from the air was going to find them. This was the second time. These people apparently attack anyone who they cross paths with. On the first expedition he was heading up river and arrows came flying out of the woods(they looked more like Zulu spears), one hit him in the neck and came out of his face. Luckily he had a radio and called for a chopper. They also come down to the other villages at night to steel cookware and the occasional person. On the second trip which was being filmed he was attacked from the shore again but they missed. I watched it the whole time thinking the tribe would be found but in the end they decided it would be best to leave them alone. When new undiscovered peoples are contacted 3/4 die from new disease, that was one of the main reasons. And they would most likely kill anyone who got close.

 

It is fascinating. It's not a sad occasion at all, I just hope like was stated above, no missionaries or people trying to push their beliefs and the idea of democracy on them. I LOVE the thought of there being tribes of indigenous people there that we don't know about. I want to hide in the jungle and live off the land myself. I wouldn't say that it's necessarily easy going, but they DON'T have the worries and issues we do here, such as disease and crime and what not...

 

Very well said!

 

Neat video! Thank you for sharing!

 

Yeah its great once we show them easier ways of making fire and food but once we have to vaccinate them for every disease that plagues us, show them video screens, devices that they cannot possibly understand, and tell them about the current state of the world...they will probably end up realizing that they were better off than they thought.

They don't know what nuclear weapons are, or politics for that matter. They don't understand the subtle emotional characteristics that we have developed over the course of many years involved with complex technology, they are clueless as to what an automobile is or does. They have feet... It would be tragic to introduce them to this world. Where everything is too fast or too slow. Not enough or too much.

Some people see an 'ex-tribesman' wearing a nike t-shirt with a bottle of vitamin water and a new pair of sunglasses as a good thing. I see it as what religious people call 'sinful'. Here is an ENTIRE group of people who have figured out how to live without everything we 'rely' on. If they are stricken with a disease, fine I understand helping them out. If there is a drought and they have no water, I have no problem with giving them some. But I think they should remain naked and within THEIR sense of decency. We shouldn't IMPOSE we should just ASSIST when they are in their most desperate of hours.

 

:iagree: